Participant

Question

Scratch disks full even with 250gb free on local drive.

Forum|Forum|3 years ago
January 21, 2023
4 replies
1837 views

I am currently working on a project that has a final board where we have all followed the same guidelines, though I appear to be the only one with an issue. Even on launch of the file my hard drive gets taken up by 150gb~. I don't know if the measurement on the scratch disk page is honest. The board is 102in x 70 in 300dpi, and while I understand the resolution is enormous, others working on their own come up with a very similar file size (around 3-6gb), though their scratch only gets up to 30gb potentially. I've already gone to a dozen articles and browsed here for solutions. I have done everything from clearing cache, uninstalling, If I've adjusted too many setting, deleting the preferences, seen if there was an issue with the tmp folder, Clean my mac (ram diagnostics), etc. I don't know what else to do. Thanks for the help!

macOS

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Mike_Gondek10189183

Community Expert

Thoroughly uninstall clean my mac. In the past that was a known trojan horse by MacPaw. They may have cleaned up their act since a decade ago, and looks all nice on outside, but there is no need for this on mac.

Simmer1

Community Expert

Hey,

That is a massive file you have there. I am assuming you have a psb version to reduce file size?

E

efficient_wisdom5CE7Author

Participant

Yes, saved to psb, though I'm not worried about the file size, especially since it's a project summation of work. Again, my issue is of scratch disk space. The two projects of similar traits and size are in comparison taking scratch space 10:1...

D Fosse

Community Expert

I have no idea what your friend is doing or what units of measurement they are on. Clearly not the same as the rest of us. There's no version of reality where this can be done with a 25 GB scratch file.

On your end everything is normal. Stop worrying why. If you're going to do this, you need more scratch disk space, end of.

TheDigitalDog

Inspiring

Also see:
https://helpx.adobe.com/photoshop/using/scratch-disks-preferences.html
And for that error you get:
https://helpx.adobe.com/photoshop/kb/troubleshoot-scratch-disk-is-full.html

Author “Color Management for Photographers" & "Photoshop CC Color Management/pluralsight"

D Fosse

Community Expert

Apparently MacOS reads free space differently than Photoshop. This is a quite common issue, frequently posted here. Do a search and see if there's a solution somewhere (I can't recall).

In any case, Photoshop reports only 95 GB free here. Let's be clear: this is a huge file at 21 000 x 31 000 pixels and 95 GB doesn't even begin to cover what you need here. Depending on history states, layers and other open documents, this is a situation where you will need around one terabyte, quite possibly more.

I'm not going into whether you really need this size (it's a very common misunderstanding that large format printing still requires 300 ppi. It doesn't! You normally don't need more pixels for large prints, because they will be seen from that much farther away).

E

efficient_wisdom5CE7Author

Participant

A friend of mine working on the same project had a file resolution of 38 000 x 27 000 and his scratch disks only took 25gb total at most stressed.

Tested the file on my own computer to see if was consistent. The same scratch appears on his computer. We have the near exact same M1 Pro Macbook pro, only their ssd storage is 1tb. Could my file just be corrupted in a way? He formatted his artboards at 1920 x 1080 res, and I prepared mine as 17in x "-" so I could print them on tabloid if I so chose. Are there any other reasons why this could be happening?

D Fosse

Community Expert

A flat file, immediately on opening, might allocate 25 GB scratch space initially. Start adding layers, and start building up history states, and it will grow very rapidly. Introduce a smart object layer or two, and it will blow up before you know it.

This is really a futile discussion. It's a big and potentially huge file, and it's your responsibility to make sure there's enough scratch disk space. This has nothing to do with Photoshop. It's just a lot of data that has to go somewhere. That's all there is to it.

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